CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTINGS

` `This chapter is consists of introduction, background of the study, theoretical

framework, conceptual framework, statement of the problem, hypothesis, significance of

the study, scope and limitation of the study and the definition of terms.

Introduction

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, more commonly known

as CARP, is an agrarian reform law of the Philippines whose legal basis is the Republic

Act No. 6657, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). It

is the redistribution of private and public agricultural lands to help the beneficiaries

survive as small independent farmers, regardless of the “tenurial” arrangement. Its

goals are to provide landowners equality in terms of income and opportunities, empower

land owner beneficiaries to have an equitable land ownership, enhance the agricultural

production and productivity, provide employment to more agricultural workers, and put

an end to conflicts regarding land ownership.

Background of the study

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has as its primary

objectives both the improvement of equity and the increase in productivity and growth in

the rural areas. Both should work towards more economic and political empowerment of

the poorer section of the rural populace and increase their social capital. All of these

should work towards the reduction of rural poverty and, through its positive spillover
effects, urban poverty as well. Poverty is generally defined here as an inability to attain

a minimum standard of living and indicates deprivation of certain basic necessities of

life, the most obvious being food. After twelve years of program implementation, it is

now timely to undertake a study which will: i) analyze the consistency of CARP and the

anti-poverty strategies of the government from the late eighties till the present, and ii)

document the actual impact of CARP on rural poverty, and whether there are spillover

effects on urban poverty.

Theoretical Framework

From the 1950s onward the land reform laws that were implemented, such as the

Agricultural Tenancy Reform Act and the Agricultural Leasehold Act, among others,

tended to be mere concessions to tenants and were insufficient to bring about

fundamental changes in the structure of land ownership. These policies did not transfer

ownership to peasants and merely focused on regulating production relations between

landowners and tenants. In 1972 Presidential Decree no. 27 under former president

Ferdinand Marcos offered a limited land redistribution window by covering only rice and

corn lands. It was implemented mainly in Central Luzon, a hotbed of peasant

insurgency and the birthplace of the New People’s Army (NPA) (Borras et al., 2009: 5;

Reyes, 2002: 8ff.) After Marcos was ousted through the People Power revolution in

1986, organized farmers and their supporters 2 NOREF Report – December 2015

demanded the immediate passage of a law on agrarian reform. A broad alliance called

the Congress for a People’s Agrarian Reform proposed what was called the People’s

Agrarian Reform Code in an attempt to pressure the new government of President

Corazon Aquino to implement agrarian reform. On January 22nd 1987 the Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines), then the largest

peasant movement in the country, organized a huge march of peasants to demand the

immediate implementation of genuine agrarian reform. The marchers clashed with the

police, leading to the infamous “Mendiola Massacre”, which caused the death of 13

farmers and injuries to more than a hundred protesters (see Gavilan, 2015). In response

to the sustained pressure from various peasant groups Congress finally enacted the

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in 1988. CARP was supposed to be

the watershed in the Philippine peasants’ struggle for land (Franco, 2008: 995) and

demands for social justice from below. Twenty-seven years later, however, demands for

agrarian reform continue. Why land reform? More than half of the Philippine population

lives in rural areas. Forty per cent of land is attributed to the agricultural sector,

employing about one-third of all Filipinos. This sector, however, contributes only 11.3%

of GDP (World Bank, n.d.). Yet for a long time vast tracts of the country’s best

agricultural lands had been in the hands of a very few landowners. This contributed

directly to widespread poverty in rural areas. A comprehensive land reform programme

was deemed necessary to address rural poverty, with landless farmers and tenants

among the most affected groups (ADB, 2009: 3). Agrarian reform is important to rural

democratization and the land-dependent rural poor’s enjoyment of basic human rights.

Philippine society is shaped by a land-based power structure and regional rural elites’

control of vast tracts of land serves as their ticket to elective office. They are able to

perpetuate themselves in power through patron-client relationships. Tenants and

ordinary people living on haciendas are normally beholden to hacienda owners through

strict social regulation. Most often, these hacienda-bounded rural citizens are unable to
exercise their basic rights to association and to vote. These regional elites undermine

traditional and indigenous concepts of landownership and restrict poor peoples’ political

ability to claim land rights (Franco, 2008: 994). The 1988 land reform law was therefore

a crucial measure to break up these undemocratic structures by targeting the

redistribution of land to landless farmers, farmworkers and tenants. Secure tenure rights

to and control of land also mean access to the fundamental human rights to livelihood

and food. Thus, agrarian reform also emphasizes land ownership as a human right as

enshrined in international treaties and policies, such as the UN Declaration on Human

Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to

which the Philippines is a state party (see FIAN Philippines, 2006). The Philippines itself

enshrined the right of farmers to own the land they till in the 1987 Philippine constitution,

enunciating that the right to land is integral to the attainment of equity and social justice

in Philippine society. Likewise, secure land tenure reduces the vulnerability of disaster

survivors. Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) exposed the vulnerabilities of

farmers without secure land tenure when some international humanitarian agencies

refused to provide humanitarian aid to farmers and informal settlers who were unable to

show secure land property rights. The right to humanitarian assistance therefore

requires that the land-dependent rural poor have secure land property rights.

Conceptual Framework

To give a clear perspective of this study, the conceptual framework was

presented in a form of paradigm. Variables used in the design of the project were

illustrated as dependent and independent.

 IV DV

Factors that may affect Agrarian

reform :

 Employment

 Investment and Capital

Effectiveness of Agrarian
Formation
Reform Law
 Impartially in Rural

Population

 Income and Living

Standard

 Agricultural Productivity

 Poverty

Frame 1 Frame 2

Figure 1. Research Paradigm

Figure 1 shows the research paradigm of the research study of Effectiveness of

Agrarian Reform Law . It shows the independent variable (IV) which are the factors that

may effect the Agrarian reform law, which is the dependent variable (DV).
 Frame 1 Is the independent variable. It contains the list of different factors that

may contribute to the Filipino women’s attitude towards different contraceptives. It

includes Employment Investment and Capital Formation Impartially in Rural Population

Income and Living Standard Agricultural Productivity and Poverty.

Frame 2 Shows the dependent variable. It is the Effectiveness of Agrarian

reform law

Objectives of the Study

The primary objective of instituting the Comprehensive agrarian Reform law was

to successfully devise land reform in Philippines. It was President Arroyo, who signed

the Executive Order No. 456 on 23rd August to rename the department of land reform as

department of agrarian reform. This had been done to expand the functional area of the

law. Apart from land reform, the department of agrarian reform began to supervise other

allied activities to improve the economic and social status of the beneficiaries of land

reform in Philippines.

Significance of the Study

The study will be helpful because it aimed to know whether the effectiveness of

the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. It will be also helpful for the following:

FARMERWORKERS

Specifically, this study sought answer to status of the farmer-beneficiaries, the changes

in their lives, and how these changes improved the lives of the farmer-beneficiaries.

ECONOMY
Agrarian Reform is very significant for the economy of any country because more than

half of the population is employed in the agricultural sector

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood especially for the developing countries.

Reforms are important because they protect the rights of the farmers.

FUTURE RESEARCHERS

They can use this research study as their reference for their future works.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

This study determined the effectiveness of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform

Law. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program covers alienable and disposable lands

of the public domain devoted to or suitable for agriculture, lands of the public domain in

excess to the specific limits, lands owned by Government devoted to or suitable for

agriculture; and private lands devoted to or suitable for agriculture regardless of the

tenurial arrangements and agricultural corps raised or that can be raised.

Based on Chapter 2, Section 4. The scopes state the following:

(a) All alienable and disposable lands of the public domain devoted to or suitable for

agriculture. No reclassification of forest or mineral lands to agricultural lands shall be

undertaken after the approval of this Act until Congress, taking into account ecological,

developmental and equity considerations, shall have determined by law, the specific

limits of the public domain.

(b) All lands of the public domain in excess of the specific limits as determined by

Congress in the preceding paragraph;

(c) All other lands owned by the Government devoted to or suitable for agriculture; and

(d) All private lands devoted to or suitable for agriculture regardless of the agricultural

products raised or that can be raised thereon.

The definition of agriculture used in this study is restricted to the crop sector of

the state. Though a study of agricultural sector encompasses several aspects from

agricultural production to marketing this study takes into account only the production

side of the crop sector. The eleven crops included were grouped into seasonal, annual

and perennial crops. It examines such questions as whether the crop sector was subject

to stagnation or to cyclical fluctuations

Definition of terms

The following terms are defined for the better understanding of this research study:

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program- more commonly known as CARP, is an

agrarian reform law of the Philippines whose legal basis is the Republic Act No. 6657,

otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL).

Agrarian Reform- can refer either, narrowly to government-initiated or government-

backed redistribution of agricultural land or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the

agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures.
Poverty- is generally defined here as an inability to attain a minimum standard of

living and indicates deprivation of certain basic necessities of life, the most obvious

being food.

Tenurial- the holding of property, especially real property, of a superior in return for

services to rendered.

Agricultural- of, relating to used in, or concerned with agriculture.

Employment- the condition of having paid work.